14.04.2016

Stöckli relies on WINTERSTEIGER

Beni Matt and Urs Kälin in front of the Race NC

Bernhard "Beni" Matt became the head of the racing sports department at Stöckli this year. In an interview with Urs Kälin, a former professional skier and a technical advisor at WINTERSTEIGER, he talks about his professional experience, about grinding technologies used to service racing skis, and about which machines he uses for which purposes.

Urs Kälin: Beni, how does one become head of a racing sports department?

Beni Matt: I really just grew into it. 7 years ago, I joined Stöckli as part of the testing team and also thoroughly acquainted myself with ski servicing. That involved a combination of learning by doing, listening, gaining experience, performing innumerable material tests, testing base structures, building upon the experience of colleagues, and of course using the right machines.

Urs Kälin: What does racing ski servicing at Stöckli look like?

Beni Matt: At Stöckli, all racing skis are serviced using specialized machines, from world cup level down to junior team level. The edges are serviced using the Trim NC from WINTERSTEIGER, with both the base edge and the side edge angles ground precisely to a tenth of a millimeter with the CNC-controlled disc technology. With the base edge, we even go as far as only allowing servicing personnel to alter these angles at the front manually in exceptional cases. No other grinding technology can guarantee such precise edge geometry!

Urs Kälin: And how is it for the base?

Beni Matt: We rely exclusively on the Race NC from WINTERSTEIGER for servicing the bases of racing skis. This base structure grinding machine is also CNC controlled and enables us to define a multitude of structures for all sorts of base characteristics, snow conditions and ski types.

Another benefit of this machine is its ability to reproduce structures perfectly. We must be able to be 100 % sure that a top-functioning structure can be transferred 1:1 to another ski.

Urs Kälin: What numbers are we talking about at Stöckli

Beni Matt: Each year we prepare around 1,600 pairs of skis for the racing circuit (World Cup to C level) with the Trim NC and the Race NC from WINTERSTEIGER. For edge tuning at the junior level, we also use the Trimjet from WINTERSTEIGER for capacity reasons.